An early-release NEJM study is getting some much-needed airplay in mainstream media. About time they caught up to what’s been discussed on the medical blogs for some time now.
Here’s one reason why physicians aren’t implementing electronic records:
Unless electronic medical records are fully funded, the majority of independent practicing physicians do not have any incentive to make the switch.In fact, the individual physician rarely sees the investment return of electronic records. They pony up the initial capital while the cost savings go to the government and health insurers. It’s a lose-lose proposition.
My solution? Have government put money where their mouth is:
Implement VistA free of charge to every physician office in the country. If the politicians are so confident that electronic records will save money, this is a no-brainer.Or, mandate physicians to implement VistA as a condition of receiving Medicare payments. This can be done in conjunction with a significant increase in physician payment rates.
Related posts:
- Pie in the sky and electronic records
- Electronic records and economic sense
- My take: Funding geriatrics, electronic records, CT-cardiac scans
- How the widespread adoption of electronic medical records can raise health care costs
- Paying doctors by the hour will increase the adoption of electronic medical records
- The government assault on VistA
- How to fund electronic medical records wisely
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{ 2 comments }
Vista is the best. I agree with your proposal. I’d use it in a second. . .just make it web-based.
The problem is that the medical market place is distorted in that the benefactors of the technology aren’t paying for it while pundits are calling for it.
The way to address this in a free society is simple–just wait for those who stand to benefit from it to ante up the money to pay for it, and ingore all the intervening hot air. When the government and insurance companies actually really believe what they are saying–that it will save money, then they will over higher reimbursements to those who adopt them. Until then, why pay attention?
I most emphatically disagree with mandating them as a condition of Medicare participation. Kevin aways has a simmering impulse to new regulation, law, mandates etc. If practitioners have particular reasons to prefer to not adopt it, even with financial incentives, then the possibility that they know what works best in their practice needs to be considered and that decision left to them. If in the end large numbers of docs don’t convert with no apparent ethical, business, or clinical barriers, then that is valuable information—that they incentive isn’t high enough.
I do wish we would stop coming up with new ways to limit our freedom.
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